Letters

Letters

Cliché Busters

I'm in the building industry in the Chicago area
and had an interesting conversation the other day
with one of my suppliers. In the past I've heard
the phrase “You'll never lose your job sticking
with Microsoft.” I don't believe that's the case
anymore; the supplier I just mentioned, this week,
let go of its IT guy of the last 12 years because he
wanted to stick with Microsoft and wouldn't consider
any Linux alternatives.

—
Joseph B. Roth

Good Articles in October

Man, that October 2004 issue rocks. I particularly
enjoyed Forster's “The Politics of Porting”.
It's always a good story when someone bets it all
and wins.

Hollenback's “Point-to-Point Linux” brought back
memories of how we used Linux for T1 connectivity
at Wayport. There is a single-port LMC (now SME)
T1 card in every Wayport hotel.
Hats off.

—
Jim Thompson

Choice in Fortran Compilers

Many Fortran programmers now use Linux, and there are
about ten vendors selling Fortran 95 compilers for
Linux. I would like to make Linux Journal readers
aware of two open-source Fortran 95 compilers under
development, g95 (see www.g95.org) and
gfortran (see www.gfortran.org). g95 is
already able to compile many large production codes,
as listed on the g95 site. gfortran will become part
of the Gnu Compiler Collection, gcc.

—
Vivek Rao

Portugal, Land of Fine Wine

I am an LJ subscriber and Linux user. Every month I
read the magazine cover to cover and always enjoy
every article, especially if it has some electronic
device involved, like the USB programming articles or
some embedded Linux device like the Linksys wireless
router.

One article I always read with special attention is
Cooking with Linux by Marcel Gagné. Besides the
technical information, I always am excited to see
what wine will he talk about each time. And until
now, and I think I am not mistaken, he has never
mentioned the fine wine from my country, Portugal.
I expect Marcel to correct this fault in one of the
next issues of LJ. I will not give any example
of Portuguese wine here, because I am confident Marcel
will find the finest brands of Portuguese wine.
Regards to all. Keep the good work.

—
Luis Sismeiro

I believe he already may have some wine from Portugal
in the cellar. Check page 26. —Ed.

Photo of the Month: Vin de Pingouin

Here is an image of a cute wine bottle; Francois
may want to buy a case or two for the Linux chef.
It was recently featured at a party to celebrate a
successful prototype of my Wi-Fi HackTenna Project.

—
Pat Kane

Hosting Provider Supports SCO

Wow, EV1 has a full page ad (November 2004, page 87). Could
this be the same EV1 caught consorting with SCO's
“Linux License” scams last year?

—
Harold
Stevens

Yes, EV1 gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to
The SCO Group, the company known for its apparently
baseless legal attacks on Linux. At the time, some
posters to the EV1 message board wrote that they
were Linux users canceling their accounts over this
controversial decision. —Ed.

Security Advice

I read Don Marti's October 2004 column with
interest. I agree that Linux is quite a way ahead of
some OSes when it comes to security.
SELinux is an excellent example of this. However,
I differ with Don concerning his plan to implement
SELinux for “simple bastion hosts such as name
servers”. Although SELinux does bring a lot to the
table, it is probably overkill for the majority of
applications Linux is used for. When you increase
the security of a system you reduce its usability.
In the majority of cases, following a few simple
steps will result in a very secure system without
having to implement SELinux.

1) Perform OS installation disconnected from a network and install
only those packages that are required for the system to function.
2) Install updated packages from media (CD-R, tape) created on another
system.
3) Configure system services to run in as secure a mode as possible.
For example, run BIND in a chroot()-ed environment.
4) Consider implementing a host-based firewall solution.
5) Enable comprehensive logging and develop processes that allow you
to examine your logs thoroughly.
6) Keep your system packages up to date.

An excellent source of information to help secure
Linux, and several other OSes (as well as Oracle
and Apache) can be found on the Center for Internet
Security Web site at www.cisecurity.org.

—
Keith Rice

On a name server, where no users need to run
applications, the extra layer of protection could be
worth the setup. See page 56 for more on SELinux. —Ed.

Less Clustering, More USB

Almost time to renew—I got my second reminder a
while back. Then the November 2004 issue arrives and
contains very little I can even understand, let
alone need. Some of your articles are so focused
that surely no more than two or three people in
the world could benefit from them. Oscar?? Lots of
cluster stuff. Event mechanisms???

Big debate on whether to renew. I can see what
Marcel's article is about, but can't see anyone
needing to do it. Some useful ideas on bash in the
Paranoid Penguin article. No Best of Tech Support.
Mostly a wasted edition.

Then I see Coming Next Month!!! Entertainment.
Just the thing I need help with. Yes—renew.
And tell Dave—he'll want to see this too.
We'll just hope they address the problems I keep
having: sound, video and USB. And hope for more
desktop stuff: Bash, gimp, spam control and USB help.

I'd like to end with “Keep up the good work”, but
have to make it, “Help me more.”
The check is in the mail.

—
Bruce Bales

Penguin Cake for Web Class

After seeing the Tux cake in the November 2004 issue,
I just had to send you a photo of the Tux cake one
of my LAMP students made to celebrate the end of the
Summer semester.

—
Darryl Bedford

Sweden.population++;

Great seeing Sweden featured in your LJ Index, October 2004.
Unfortunately, the figures are a bit outdated as we are now
officially 9+ million living here.

—
Nit Picker aka Martin
S.

Conference on Non-Linux Web Server?

I was cruising Netcraft and saw that the LinuxWorld
Conference and Expo site is hosted on Microsoft
Windows and IIS. I think a small letter-writing
campaign could fix that problem. I think mentioning
this in the editorial section would generate enough
hate mail for these guys that they would correct
their oversight.

I'm sure we could gather up resources to build,
configure and maintain that server from volunteer
resources. So they would be out only the hosting
costs.

—
Dan

It's a good thing hate mail doesn't work, or everyone
with software to promote would be flaming you. If you
want to attend a conference with a Linux-based Web
site, try linuxsymposium.org. —Ed.